Words #4

We finish our series on words with the damming reminder from James in chapter 3 that the tongue is deadly! It can effect and infect our entire body and it is set on fire by hell itself! Wow – this is a severe warning. The scripture asks who can tame the tongue?

The only way that we can tame this tongue is by being yielded (give in to) the Holy Spirit working in our lives. We need to be more aware of Him prompting us and working in us. The last fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5 is ‘Self Control’ we need to develop this like our lives depend on it. Because they kinda do!

James 3.10 tells us that Christians should not be saying nice things one minute and then later allowing garbage to come out of our mouth, we have a responsibility to sound different! In our sounding different we will think and act differently too! We are a ‘called out’ ‘set a side’ people, yes we live in the culture but we are not supposed to look and sound like the culture, we are above it – setting a culture that is above the earthly one.

So as you go about the next few days and weeks remember the list of attributes our tongue can be known for like manipulating, betraying, lying, harsh, even silent – we don’t want to be those people! We don’t want to grow that culture! We want the opposite, we want to develop a culture in our church and youth ministry that is always lifting others up and speaking them up!

You can do this, you can be this, you can build and shape this place – but you need the Holy Spirit to do it. And we all need to yield more and more to what He would want us to say. So each day ask him. Keep silent when you sense it’s time to. Don’t allow evil sounding stuff to come out. Ask Him to help you flip your comments around!